The Subtle Death of Snow

I was sitting on my desk on a cold afternoon in Thimphu and everyone was expressing their joys and worries about the potential snowfall that day, -Joy, because it’s snow and nothing about these angelic white crystals is frowned upon by anybody, and worries, for the dangerous icy road that will freeze transportation like a corpse. But I like how it keeps us all stranded in our homes, close to the warmth from all sorts of sources ranging from the fancy electric heaters to our loved ones.

The last snowfall was a couple of weeks ago, and it spread joy like it spread millions of pictures on the internet. It’s amazing to see how people celebrate snowfall in ways beyond the pictures they take. For instance, snowfall in our culture promises good harvests and fortunes for the whole year and an omen such as this is taken so seriously that if there was no snowfall, we begin to suspect our fortunes. Also, snow is an important element of the climate cycle that balances the earth’s temperature.

The snowfall that day barely lasted for five minutes but the sky still looks constipated, if not with snow then surely with something cold and icy. It doesn’t snow like it used to few years ago. I remember when I was little, the snow would reach higher than my knee and it would easily soak in without a pair of long boots. It must’ve been about a foot high then, but now it just covers the ankles.

What’s so alarming and worrisome is the pace at which the earth is warming up. But as ironic as it may sound, climate science says that there’s supposed to be more snowfall with global warming. The reason being that there will be more evaporation from the oceans and water bodies as the earth temperature rises, and as a result more precipitation is expected. Furthermore, the change in weather patterns can be abnormal and this may be why we’re experiencing lesser snowfall than we used to before.

I can’t imagine if there was no snowfall at all at some point of time because it’s likely that there won’t be. Think about the activities around us, millions of factories sprawling through our forests, the number of cars on the roads and the amount of beef we’re consuming. It’s possible that every little thing we’re doing right now, is contributing to global warming by one way or the other. They say that we can help reduce the damage in our own little ways such as avoiding the use of plastic bags, or walking a few kilometers instead of driving. There are huge fossil fuel industries in the other parts of the earth contributing hugely to global warming and who would not switch to an alternative because it would mean their economy crashing down. So in this case, I think it’s pointless because our little ways of finding these alternatives is ridiculed in terms of scale as well as concern for the mother earth.

Just leaving some thought for the week.